the roots of Konoha

I glanced around her house in curiosity as I entered, it seemed almost identical to how I remembered it in my admittedly rather sparse memories. The curtains were still white, matching the furniture of the living room, there were still a wide array of plants placed around the living room, some of which I knew were poisonous, and many others which probably were poisonous, but where I simply lacked the knowledge to recognize them.

"Your house hasn't changed much, still as beautiful as I remembered" I said.

"it's not like I have a particularly big hand in choosing how out home is decorated" Ino said.

"of course not, I would just assume that any place I've ever visited would wither and die with me" I said with an open and honest expression.

"I thought you said you never died in the first place?" Ino questioned in an attempt to get back on track.

"you're right, I never died, I guess I can still hold on to that assumption then" I said with a vindicated smile.

Ino showed me to the kitchen and grabbed a glass of water for me, she then attempted to get me to tell her what in the world happened to me over the last year and a half. While she was doing that, I steadfastly engaged in small talk, after all, keeping her unaware of my survival would have been cruel and morally bankrupt, but keeping her in suspense as to how I survived was far more ethically defensible. I finally caved when she started reaching for my head to invade my mind.

Thirty minutes later when I had finally told my story from beginning to end, excluding the part where I figured out that war was coming for Konoha since I wasn't exactly keen on committing treason within a day of being pardoned. I also did not tell her about... her, justifying it to myself by telling myself that she might be able to figure out the part about the war if she knew about her. At the end of my rather spectacular tale Ino was simply sitting on the couch with a rather dazed expression.

"would you look at how late it is, I'm rather tired, but I don't have a place to sleep. I could hobble over to Naruto's apartment, but it would probably take so long with my ONE FOOT that I wouldn't even have time to sleep when I got there, and who knows what diseases that pigsty has bred, I would probably get all of them if I went over there. If only I had a true friend willing to lend me their couch for the night" I said overly dramatically.

"you do know that I would let you stay here even without your strange guilting, right?" Ino asked

"I would prefer not taking any chances, after all, I only have ONE FOOT" I said, once again placing special emphasis on the part about my foot, to which Ino only responded with a snort.

And so, I gained a couch for the night, a rather comfortable one to be honest, and a blanket to sleep under, but I was still thinking about what Danzo said earlier even as the scent of plants gently guided me to sleep. A sleep which was, however, plagued with dreams of deathly screams, wet thuds, and all the ways I caused those screams.

"while I do appreciate your appreciation for our blanket, it is either time to wake up, or time to miss breakfast, and altough I suspect you are fine with both, I will not let my guest miss breakfast" a stately voice said, dragging me from my normally heavy sleep with the sheer authority behind it. when I opened my eyes I saw a woman with brown, pupilless eyes, dark brown hair in a bun with matching eyebrows, one of which were quirked in clear amusement.

"you are correct that I would be fine with either, however, if my honored host wishes me to eat with her, I see no reason not too" I said smiling up at the woman who was obviously Ino's mom.

"you flatter me" she said with a faint smile before leading me over to the table where Ino and Inoichi were already seated, one of whom were glaring at me.

"do not mind my husband, he is simply overprotective, most of us who know of what happened that day do not think too ill of you for what you did, you were after all but a child, so long as you avoid making any more of such mistakes" she said, sending a small glare at her husband.

"I almost certainly probably won't do it too rashly without serious consideration for time periods of up to a minute" I said with a smile before sitting down to eat.

It was a rather nice meal, and it reminded me of how much I missed cooking, the conversation was pleasant. It was nice to catch up with Ino, although she seemed more distant than I remembered, presumably due to the surreal nature of my reappearance in her life. Her mother was also nice, and her father was glaring at me throughout the whole meal, though it honestly felt more like a token effort to show his stance on boys around Ino than actual malice. there came a thump from the door, as someone clearly knocked, and Inoichi went to check on it, I didn't pay it much thought, but that suddenly changed when Inoichi came back into the room and spoke to me.

"Anno, come with me for a moment, he says that he is here with a message for you" Inoichi said.

As I walked towards the door, I couldn't discard the feeling that something seemed off, how did whoever was at the door know where I was? Well, that wasn't truly strange since I was in a hidden village, the strange part was why did they want to know where I was? While I had completed an espionage mission, I wasn't inclined to believe that my performance had been anywhere near optimal, I had assumed that I would be delegated to far more normal shinobi missions from then on.

"ahh, you must be Anno, you can call me Sai, due to your involvement with the root of this incident it has been decided that you will participate in a force tasked with investigating when the situation you discovered will unfold, the team is to be led by Danzo, and you are to follow me to the initial location" he said, and I couldn't help but notice how strange his voice was, his tone was filled with an extreme cheerfulness while his inflection remained the same, no change in pressure, just the same cheerful tone.

Sai immediately walked away after passing me his message, clearly expecting me to follow without question, and while I did follow him, I certainly didn't do so without questions.

"how big is this team?" I asked curiously.

"you will be informed of the specifics when we arive at the initial location" Said responded, his voice still the exact same cheerful tone.

And that was the only answer I got, no matter how I phrased any question, no matter what the question was, even at times where the question I asked were only slightly connected to the new mission I apparently had. Like when I asked what his favorite color was, it was only the same answer, unless of course I asked something unrelated to the mission, in which case he would simply ignore me. The entire situation was incredibly strange, it felt less like I was walking with a person and more like an empty shell, a puppet, with only the wretched hand of someone else inside to control it.

Eventually he led me to an unassuming building, up two flights of stairs, through a secret passageway, onwards for several hundreds of meters, up into another building with no windows. The dark Insides of the building hid a planning room behind one worn-down door, with multiple maps on the walls, file cabinets taking up whatever space maps didn't cover, and a long table in the center with enough room for nineteen people where I chose to sit down. Then I saw Sai continuing to walk past me and up to the fourth chair on the right, where he did something on the bottom of the chair which caused it, and part of the floor, to gently glide down and to the left, before a panal slid to cover the place where the chair disappeared to, leaving only a smooth hole with a ladder on the side.

"we are almost there, Anno, please stand up and follow me" Sai said, still smiling cheerfully as he waited for me to enter the dark hollow.

"and you are completely sure you don't want to go first? Don't you think there is something exiting about being the first to enter a strange hole with no end in sight?" I asked with a slightly nervous smile.

I received no answer, as apparently no one had ordered Sai to do so.

"fine, then, if you are really okay with me getting the pleasure of being the first one down this exquisite, dark, intimidating, seemingly endless hole, then I'll take your gracious offer" I said as I slowly walked over to the hole, climbing down the ladder into the darkness as the echos of my feet against the iron rungs of the ladder sounded in my ears, the fact that Sai followed right after me only providing a small comfort.

We finally came to the bottom of the hole, landing in a chamber lit only by the sparse lights in the ceiling, their harsh white glare giving an eiry contrast to the gray stone all around us. The only thing in the room was a set of large double doors with intricate carvings of deep roots reaching into the unknown depths of the earth on them.

"this is a rather nice carving, I really like the style of this place's interior design" I said.

There was no answer.

I slowly walked to the doors and reached for their cold stone surface to push them open, the silence undisturbed as the doors swung open. What was revealed beyond the doors was a grand hall with a path leading down the center, on each side gnarled, twisting stone roots reached down from the ceiling, each root had at least one masked shinobi on it, all hanging motionlessly from whatever twist of stone they could find as they stared at me, their heads turning as I walked past. At the end of the path Danzo stood alone, his back turned to me as he studied the masterful carving on the far wall, depicting a small yet beautiful tree near the ceiling, and the large web of roots supporting it.

"i always find it interesting that so many civilians and shinobi alike are capable of ignoreing the fact that Konoha has no known force for dealing with the darker, more important parts of the shinobi world. They always seem think that Konoha is somehow different than other villages, that our focus on cooperation is somehow enough to avoid the cruel nature of humanity. Fools, all of them are truly fools... either that, or they know the truth yet do not speak it, refusing to ruin the blissful ignorance of those who do not know... tell me, which of the two do you find inside yourself?" he asked, his voice echoing strangely between the stone roots to make it seem as if whispered from all around me.

"the first, probably, though I guess that I would have become the second at some point" I said.

"an accurate assessment, you are currently a fool, unable to recognize the darkness of the world, but I can see the slim potential you hold for something more, if only you were even somewhat capable of making the correct choices, of course, your lack of judgement can be made up for with the correct leadership, as long as you follow orders, nothing bad will happen" he said.

"what is this place?" I asked, nolonger capable of holding myself back.

"this is root, an organization I created with the permission of the Hokage decades ago, we are the reason Konoha thrives, we work tirelessly in the darkness to let those in the light flourish, we take care of those we do not know because we know there is no one else capable of fulfilling the tasks which need to be done, even if we receive no gratitude, we still work as a silent hand, led by me so that no foolish choices can be made and thus we avoid unfortunate situations like yours due to poor decisions" Danzo said as he turned around.

"then why am I here? You don't exactly seem to lack manpower" I asked.

"the reason you are here is that you may be useful to Konoha, however, the only way you can stop hurting all those around you with your foolishness, inadequacy, and inability to see your responsibility to the whole instead of the people you care for, which will only hurt those you care for more, is if you get a firm hand to guide you, a hand you will not receive from Hiruzen. So I have brought you here, you will be trained and honed into a person who can help Konoha instead of break it" he said.

"does that mean that I cannot leave?" I asked.

"i will do nothing to keep you here, and when you realize that your foolishness will only prevail and hurt those whom you love until you receive my help, we will accept you back into our training, for as much as you can cause suffering without proper guidance, you do have a rather impressive affinity for the art of seals, a talent which, when wielded correctly, could help Konoha" he said.

The purpose of root did sound noble enough, but something seemed off, the way he described me was the same way you would describe a tool, only useful when wielded by the right hand. It didn't sit well with me, so I left, however, no matter how strange the whole situation was, the words he spoke still echoed in the darkest recesses of my mind, the places which blamed me for my last night in Kirigakure. His words had taken root.